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You're a software engineer: you're great with computer languages, compilers, debuggers, and algorithms. But is that really all you need to be a successful software engineer? You certainly want these skills to be sufficient: in a perfect world, those who produce the best code should be the most successful.

"Should" is the operative word here, however. We do not live in this perfect world. We live in a world of people, and people are irrational, unpredictable, and imperfect. And you must work with people to get your job done. In fact, playing well with others is at least as important as having great technical skills.

In this entertaining book, Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman cover basic patterns and anti-patterns for working with other people, teams, and users while trying to develop software. This is valuable information from two respected software engineers whose popular series of talks—including "Working with Poisonous People"—has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.